The Victim report I read on here was a perfect description of what happened to me when I dealt with this company. However, my process was much longer. The response said that you couldn't call a company a scam that you spent five minutes with... Well I spent about 9 hours with this company, and I would go much farther than saying it was a scam.
The first meeting was exactly as described. The interview seemed legitimate, and the owner was very careful in his description of what the company actually does. Here I am imagining an advertising company, just like the website would have me believe existed, and I told to come in for a second interview.
The second interview would consist of shadowing an "advertising campaign" for a day. I put it in quotes because the term is used loosely, as in there is no ad campaign, not in anyone's definition.
I show up the second day, and I am paired with an employee. We start off on a expedition, as she says to meet with a business owner to discuss what they are looking for in an ad campaign. She drives to a gas station and we wait for another employee to show up while she begins veraciously selling the company to me. She rambles on and on about how she will own her own division of this company in a month because she has been working there for three months. This is my first clue that something is not right.
We begin driving to Pembroke Pines, where the business we are to be working with is located. After a long drive, we stop at a strip mall. When we get out of the car, she grabs a stack of cards. They are pamphlets discussing a spa package. She asks me to follow her in a business and she begins trying to sell the poor people working in the office these pamphlets. She tells them we are from the spa and this is a one day deal. She tries to get them to give her money on the spot for these packages. Of course they are not interested, and they politely ask us to leave so they can get back to their work.
We leave the business and this is when she tells me what they actually do. They go door to door and sell things, day in and day out. They all pick up whatever packet they have for the day, and drive around interrupting businesses trying to pitch them these packages, that for all I know, may not even be real. AND all of their employees are actually convinced that if they do this for three months that they will all get their own "advertising company". They believe they are just learning how to do this so that they can train others to sell door to door. Its unreal.
We keep walking to more businesses, and now we are in an office building. It consists of law offices and real estate brokers, all with NO SOLICITING signs posted on their doors. When I point out the sign before we enter, the employee scoffs and says, "I always ignore those". I am humiliated as we enter these reputable businesses with this crap. People are locking their doors behind us as they ask us to leave. They tell us over and over that we aren't supposed to come in and sell things to them. This continues all day, and mind you, not one "package" is sold. The employees only make money if they sell them.
This girl wastes her entire day peddling these and bothering people to no avail, and doesn't even make a cent. She is so brainwashed that she keeps saying, 'its ok, I am going to be the boss someday. I am going to be 'Jerad' and sit in the office while other people do this." Its absurd.By the time I just about can't take it anymore, and beg to go back, she is too scared to come back to the office before 6 because she might get in trouble... So she drops me off on the corner where she can't be seen, and I walk to freedom.
I wasted 9 hours of my time on this company who shouldn't be allowed to call themselves an advertising company. This is NOT advertising. Advertising does not involve peddling things door to door. After an entire wasted day, and endless humiliation, it is more than clear why none of this was EVER mentioned to me in my interview, or in the job posting, or on the website... Because no one who knew what kind of company this was would ever choose to be a part of it. I was more than insulted that someone would waste my time and insult my intelligence in this way.
When i confronted the owner about it, he admitted that he felt the same way when he first started and it was never something eh wanted to get into. He even admits to getting into a shouting match with the employee he went with on the soliciting spree. He tells me that it would only be temporary, and I will eventually own my own little pamphlet peddling office, which is like telling someone that if they sell crack on the streets for a while, they will eventually run their own cocaine ring. Its not worth it.
This company should be stopped from their tactics. I do not want this to happened to anyone else, and I feel deeply sorry for the brainwashed, uneducated people this company is taking advantage of. Its so sad.
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